Has anyone turned a circuit bent (if you are unfamiliar with this, google it) piece into a guitar pedal? I just turned a toy Hanna Montana guitar into a distortion/oscillation monster with true bypass. It had echo to it, but I managed to fry that in the circuit bending process! I'll upload pics to this thread soon. Most anything that has an obvious input and output (or speaker) can be used as long as you get the proper voltages right. If anyone has done this, what have you used?
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=88371.0
Quote from: timd on January 23, 2012, 07:37:01 PM
Has anyone turned a circuit bent (if you are unfamiliar with this, google it) piece into a guitar pedal? I just turned a toy Hanna Montana guitar into a distortion/oscillation monster with true bypass. It had echo to it, but I managed to fry that in the circuit bending process! I'll upload pics to this thread soon. Most anything that has an obvious input and output (or speaker) can be used as long as you get the proper voltages right. If anyone has done this, what have you used?
I've circuit bent tons of stuff (that was my gateway to pedals), but haven't turned any into pedals. All the stuff I've done
generates their own sound, so there's no input...just an small output speaker that I remove and replace with a 1/4" jack.
what are good examples of toys that have an input....and don't just make a sound by pushing a button? The one posted by CynicalMan is one, but that's not common to find.
I have to give you props - that is really cool!
I have also made stuff out of toys and used the speaker output for the 1/4 jack. Many toys have an mic input, which is (almost?) always the mini jack and needs to be modified to 1/4. The Hanna Montana toy guitar had this mic input, and a echo knob with that input (fried it!!). I disconnected the cheezy songs circuitry and bent it for distortion/oscillation and on some settings it sounds like the random number generator pedal!
Just go to the thrift store and see what they have!
Here's a thought that I have had often? How hard would it be to "manufacture" an input on a device that doesn't have one? Is this just a crazy waste of time?
You'd have to go through the circuit and find areas of it that could take external audio...any circuit with Ann audio amp ala the lm386 could theoretically take an audio source...a guitar signal may require some boosting. Again this is all theoretical, YMMV.
i have 2 of those sitting here , looking for more too . they also have a similar barbie model , saw one today , with echo but it was 3 bux :(
i made a lil echo box outta one , i had 3 , i added delay time / feedback pots . i just run it on my "sound system" mp3 player , sub and total of 76 spkrs wrth sub . you have to tweak the delay for every song , and some it doesnt sound great but some tunes it just kills .
really curious about how you bent it . i sent you an email , lemme know if you didnt get it . i basicly beg you for a demo video , pics , pinouts , diagrams , all info reasonably possible ! ireally do not want to fry anything . i have before , and i cant forgive myself when that happens .
i was gonna make some mini echo amps and sell em , but maybe doing a goofy pedal would be more "practical" heh .
thatnks for sharing man !!
now i am stoked , but i got tons of stuff lined up here ...
Quote from: timd on January 23, 2012, 08:37:30 PM
I have also made stuff out of toys and used the speaker output for the 1/4 jack. Many toys have an mic input, which is (almost?) always the mini jack and needs to be modified to 1/4. The Hanna Montana toy guitar had this mic input, and a echo knob with that input (fried it!!). I disconnected the cheezy songs circuitry and bent it for distortion/oscillation and on some settings it sounds like the random number generator pedal!
Just go to the thrift store and see what they have!
I actually have tons (50+) toys in boxes that I never got around to mutilating....Fuzz pedals took over. I'll see what I have that can be destroyed.
Quote
Here's a thought that I have had often? How hard would it be to "manufacture" an input on a device that doesn't have one? Is this just a crazy waste of time?
not at all...I'm sure it's possible, but a better understanding of electronics would help...or just go the circuit bending way...trial an error.
Quote from: emstin1 on January 24, 2012, 12:07:49 AM
You'd have to go through the circuit and find areas of it that could take external audio...any circuit with Ann audio amp ala the lm386 could theoretically take an audio source...a guitar signal may require some boosting. Again this is all theoretical, YMMV.
Almost all the toys have a "brain" (a black formed "dome", probably covering a chip. It seems that most of the stored sounds originate there). Other than that, there's just a bunch of transistors, resistors, caps & diodes.
I pulled a couple transistors from baby toy a while ago and made an excellent Fuzz Face that all my friends chose over the one I made with BC108's...funny
I've run into the "black blob" more times than not when circuit bending. I suppose you could connect a sound source to a 1/4 female jack, connect the sleeve to circuit ground and start prodding traces coming out of the blob with a wire connected to the 1/4 tip until you hear something. Anyone?
Getting back to that bending toys with mic input, and speaker output for guitar pedals, I really wish there was a way to take a cheap keyboard with mic input and make a pedal out of it that would let you scroll through all the preset noises (keys, horns, etc) and process the guitar with those - much like the Saxxy in the above post.
Is is even remotely possible?????????????????? As far as I can tell, the mic inputs usually bypass this part of the circuit.
One word of caution though - if making a 9v guitar pedal out of one of these circuits, make sure you get the voltages right! I had to use a pot and trimmer for my project to step it down from a 9 volts to 6.
Pics!!!
(http://s1075.photobucket.com/albums/w429/timd33/?action-view¤t=DSC04873.jpg%5Bimg%5Dhttp://s1075.photobucket.com/albums/w429/timd33/?action-view¤t=DSC04878.jpg%5Bimg%5Dhttp://s1075.photobucket.com/albums/w429/timd33/?action-view¤t=DSC04875.jpg)[/img][/img]
http://s1075.photobucket.com/albums/w429/timd33/?action=view¤t=DSC04875.jpg
check out the photobucket album for more pics of this project! Ask with any questions..
really cautious about blowing one of these boards up . i do have a camera with a macro lens . i could upload some close ups of the board later . did you add any components besides pots ?
how many pots did you add ?
what value are the pots ?
how many bends did you find ?
how would you describe each bends "function" or effect .
anyway if i upload some nice macro images you could , say use paint or another imaging program to highlight the bend points on the pcb ?
i have seen diagrams like this before , i know its kind of a lot of work . i at least would try and get some really nice images for you to start working with .it would be nice because i have seen these guitars a LOT lately . i am guessing they came out last christmas and were very affordable , cause i have purchased 5 . one is converted into an echo unit . the others i was going to make into mini echo amps .
BUT if these mods are cool ... i would lov to bend it , but like i said i am a lil worried about frying anything , having the bend points as a reference would be a super cool time saver !!
think about it . thanks , pete .
first let me make a few UN-necessary comments .
where did you get that chassis and what was it originally ? it looks like there is a thermos holder inside there ! but then its all scratched up like a squirrel was trying to escape . maybe that thermos holder was for his water bottle ? `i know its nice to have lotsa room to work , but damn . a frugal squirrel could stash enough nuts and grubs to last the winter in there ! dont get me wrong , i HATE spending $ on housings .i got some kiddie lunch boxs (for an lpb-1 maybe?) and this wooden duck game box called quack quack that i made into a cmoss synth so who am i to yammer . :icon_wink:
second observation ; is that an old TV tuner knob ? how long was that sitting in your junk drawer ? the only reason i bring this up is cause I did the same thing on one of my mini amps . it was from my grammas old B+W 7 1/5 inch zenith . that thing got moved around to like 5 houses over the period of 30 plus years before it finally found its home . its my favorite feature on the amp . sure i hacked 2 dano pedals and an amp board to make it , BUT I'LL BE DARNED IF I'M GONNNA POP .49 CENTS FOR A KNOB .... :icon_biggrin: jusat imagine getting dragged outta retirement to a SH**TIER job after takin it easy for 35 years >:(
i LOVE how you re-used the OEM H.M. knobs though . i swapped em out on my hacka montanna echo unit only cause i had a matching set from grammas emmerson eight track . those are gonna be worth some $$ someday , i kid .
on to image 18 . whats in the salad bowl , ceasers apc ? forest mimms ate out that salad bowl every day for 23 years till widlar threw it out the window in a jealous rage . ( i heard mimms replaced (drunk) widlars analog micronta vom with a walmart digital multimeter after spilling thousand islad in the vu meter )
ok all attempts at geek humor aside , i put my glasses on and looked a little harder at the images .
i am seeing (prolly wrong though) 2 pots for bends , then one that looks like its for voltage .
one pot has one wire going to a middle lug on an onboard pot , and the other wire coming off of that first bend pot goes to a pin on the chip ?
same thing for the other bend pot but it is going to a different onboard pot , middle lug , then a different pin on the same chip ?
which pins are they ? are they "end" pins ?
whats the number on the chip ?
did you add any components besides pots ?
what value are the pots ?
how many bends did you find ?
how would you describe each bends "function" or effect .
how would you describe the effects of the bends ?
sorry about the first 5 paragraphs , please let me know how wrong i am / how much i missed , and thanks for posting this info man !!
p.s. whats a stuttering stanley ?
Quote from: timd on January 24, 2012, 05:38:57 PM
Is is even remotely possible?????????????????? As far as I can tell, the mic inputs usually bypass this part of the circuit.
The clue is in how the toy works unmodified! If you yell into the microphone on a toy keyboard, you hear your yelling come back through the little speaker(s). It doesn't turn your voice into a piano/trumpet/harpsichord.
Petey Twofinger - I'll be explaining the whole thing is stages tonight, but I did want to say before I forgot that I took the cap's and resoldered them on the underside of the board. There was no room to mount the original pots with those things sticking up like they were. Next time, I think I'll take the pots off the board entirely.
Quote from: anchovie on January 26, 2012, 06:05:11 AM
Quote from: timd on January 24, 2012, 05:38:57 PM
Is is even remotely possible?????????????????? As far as I can tell, the mic inputs usually bypass this part of the circuit.
The clue is in how the toy works unmodified! If you yell into the microphone on a toy keyboard, you hear your yelling come back through the little speaker(s). It doesn't turn your voice into a piano/trumpet/harpsichord.
This is great advice.
Alright - The enclosure is an old power supply of some sort that I gutted and sprayed light blue. Those prongs originally held a huge capacitor. I usually make my pedals in vintage cases (when possible) and reuse old knobs when I can because I like that cool vintage worn look for my builds. And yes, thats a TV knob via a side of the road find!
On to the meaty stuff:
The added pots are 100K x 2 and one 5k pot (voltage regulator/starve w/additional trimpot). I have it running off 9v wal-wart, so I regulated the voltage (originally 6v).
The 100k bends...
1. MIC VOL original pot - middle lug wired to outer lug of 100k. Inner lug of 100k to c26.
2. Echo middle lug to middle of other 100k pot. Outer to pin 5 of the amp chip. Its also connected to c29.
All of this migh seem really random, but it works. I'll link a video when I make one (soon) so you can see what this thing sounds like!
Oh, and the 100K bending pots just give different levels of fuzz/squeal.
excellent , a video !
Here are the links to the videos for this pedal:
http://www.youtube.com/user/tdiederich3/videos
thanks for uploading those , i thought a cds cell might go nicely with the ocs. mode .
curious if you needed to pad down the output at all ?
i mean that circuit has an lm386 amp in it , wouldnt the signal be really really hot coming out of that ?
I didn't pad down the output at all, though I should - the oscillations are really loud! What's the best way to do this? Trimpot or resistor on the circuit output leading into the stomp switch? Also, what would be a good value to standardize this thing with other pedals?
i was thinking about this today , maybe try a 100 k pot ? then keep bypassing it / turning it back on , playing clean , then witht it engaged and match the volume . then you could get a restsitor(s) to match what a little louder is then "the smae volume" put that resistor with a ten k pot , hook those up (removing the 100k , that was just for a test) .
please let me know your findings cause i am gonna need to do this too , with n7y hanna montanna circuits and this goofy voice changer amp i want to convert to a pedal . get me ?
thanks , and good luck ,
Sure thing - let's all learn this together. BTW - I'm go this Mims Oscillator (APC) I converted to a guitar pedal, and its LOUD. I've seen a
-4db posted here and there for the APC. How is this done? Same as above??
not sure never saw that
on this YT vid in the description it says " active circuit volume reduction " so i am thinking it is a simple op amp that reduces the gain maybe ? its odd cause usually one does not need to use an amp to make something quieter ! maybe , if we dont get any replys here one of us should search this , then make a post if it hasnt come up , but ... i am super busy .
on a different note i saw this and thought it would be right up your alley !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NndG0aCoBa8
if you could figure out an efficient way to gate it , it could actually be "usefull" , maybe ?
(http://www.diyguitarmods.com/helpfularticlesandinfo/addingavolumepot/VolumePotDia.jpg)
"Here's a thought that I have had often? How hard would it be to "manufacture" an input on a device that doesn't have one? Is this just a crazy waste of time?"
I remember posting this and found a way. Take a 1/4 female jack and wire up the ring to ground, and the tip to a another wire with a bare metal tip. *use this method only with battery powered stuff*
Turn the device needing an input on and connect a noise generator or keyboard on demo mode, etc to the 1/4 female we made above. simply prod around with that wire (staying away from connections close to power) until the signal is heard. That's your input!
I did as you asked and searched for "circuit bending" and found this. I'm giong to have trouble sleeping tonite.
Quote from: chromesphere on April 28, 2012, 06:53:13 AM
I did as you asked and searched for "circuit bending" and found this. I'm giong to have trouble sleeping tonite.
LOL. There's nothing like randomly poking around in circuit! Good thing they're not playing with tube amps!
Wow! I never saw this video before. The first minute of the video showcases some of the bad aspects of circuit bending... After learning some hard electronic knowledge its fun to circuit bend again and use this info for stompbox work.
Yeah i think they are "playing it up a bit", pretty funny how that guys staring at the wall and theres an alarm sound going off and he says "...which one is it".
Seriously though looks like alot of fun. As soon as i have kids, im giong to start ripping their toys apart :D
Paul
Yeah, the video was tounge in cheek. I agree that it's fun to take a circuit that's intended to do one thing and make it do something else, especially if the outcome is desirable and useful. I've done this myself. We've got some sharp folks on this forum who have an idea about what they are doing when they "bend". I hope that I didn't offend anyone with my comments. I've read Tim's posts on this and other threads and he seems pretty sharp. Regarding some of the people in the video, I was a little unsettled watching them randomly connecting jumpers to a circuit or adding components without having an idea about what they're doing.
As they say in SCUBA, "Get Bent!"
the speak and spell / speak and math speak and read are really fun once they are bent .
i just picked up a furby , i think those can be bent into something that is actually more annoying than the orig .
i have a casio sk-1 , but .... man i looked for one for so many years , i am too chicken to bend it .
i found it in the salvation army lingerie isle , i was just cutting thru on my way out , really .
the sk-1 is a really desirable bend , not sure why , but until i find another i dont want to know .
Here's a good video on how to solder when circuit bending:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XpAtN-asqb0
Quote from: Jdansti on April 28, 2012, 10:18:14 PM
Yeah, the video was tounge in cheek. I agree that it's fun to take a circuit that's intended to do one thing and make it do something else, especially if the outcome is desirable and useful. I've done this myself. We've got some sharp folks on this forum who have an idea about what they are doing when they "bend". I hope that I didn't offend anyone with my comments. I've read Tim's posts on this and other threads and he seems pretty sharp. Regarding some of the people in the video, I was a little unsettled watching them randomly connecting jumpers to a circuit or adding components without having an idea about what they're doing.
As they say in SCUBA, "Get Bent!"
Thanks for the kind words. Yeah, I agree about the randomly connecting jumpers thing! In battery powered stuff, jumpers too close to power can possibly destroy the circuit. If the unaware bender makes jumper connections in something connected to a wall wort, it could destroy you! That's my main concern about the budding popularity of circuit bending (even though its how I started building circuits!). I just fear that people with no background can read a little bit about it online - and not the cautions - and wind up in a sad state.
Newest circuit bent guitar pedal:
http://youtu.be/SEhFU5hfoZs